At some point Cooper evidently conveyed to TJ undated notes on his proposals for medical education in Virginia, detailing his curriculum for a medical school there:

“Medical school. Central College
Chemistry.
Botany.
Materia Medica, & Pharmacy.
History of the theory & Practice of Medecine.

---

Norfolk

Anatomy: general: morbid: comparative.

Physiology and Pathology.

	Clinical Lectures on the Theory and
	Practice of Medecine		Symptomatology
			Therapeutics.

Surgery & Midwifery” (MS in ViU: TJP; written entirely in Cooper’s hand on one side of a small scrap of paper; undated; archivally bound with the Dfts of TJ’s Rockfish Gap Report printed above at 4 Aug. 1818).

Cooper may have seen the extract from an anonymous letter to richmond newspaper editor Thomas Ritchie, dated Charlottesville, 22 Sept. 1819: “As you are as well as myself a warm friend to the University of Virginia, it will perhaps not be uninteresting to you to know what is doing here towards the accomplishment of this great work. I must first give you a general outline of the plan, that you may know what portion of the work is executed. It is contemplated to build on each side of a lawn about two hundred feet wide, and on a beautiful eminence, a range of buildings, for the accommodation of the professors and students. There are to be five pavilions on each side, from 60 to 100 feet apart; each pavilion has a lecture room and four or five other rooms for the use of the professor. The intervals between the pavilions are filled up with dormitories sufficiently large for two students to each. About thirty dormitories on each side of the lawn will till [i.e., fill] up the intervals between the pavilions. Gardens will be laid off at the back of the pavilions, running back to a street about 250 feet from the lawn and parallel to it. On the back streets, boarding houses and other dormitories will be erected. The lawn will be handsomely improved, by planting trees and sodding it. It will be terminated on the North end by a large circular building and remain open to the South for any additional buildings that may be found necessary hereafter. So much for the general plan—Now for what is executed. Two pavilions are nearly completed, they are of the very best materials, and the workmanship is well executed, and finished externally with great taste. One of them has a very rich Corinthian entablature; the other finished agreeably to the Ionic order. All the pavilions are to have porticos in front and a colonade in front of the dormitories, so that the students can go to any lecture room under cover. The buildings will be all finished agreeably to the different orders of Architecture. In addition to the foregoing, four other pavilions, with the intermediate dormitories are now going on, and it is expected one or two more will be put up this fall if the weather is favorable. It is much to be regretted that the funds of this institution are so slender; the subscribers, I understand, pay but little, and the donation of the state will not go far towards completing the establishment. It must therefore be protracted for some years; if aid is not granted from some source or other, and where can we look but to the legislature? It will rest entirely with the next Assembly to say whether this important state institution, (that will not only save thousands that are carried out of the state for the education of Virginians, but in all probability will bring thousands from our sister states to the South and West,) shall be finished with expedition, or drag on heavily for years to come. With sufficient funds the buildings could all be completed the next year” (Richmond Enquirer, 1 Oct. 1819; at head of text: “UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. The deep interest we feel in this institution induces us to give the following description of the buildings, from a letter to the editor”).

Cooper’s application for the office of commissioner of bankruptcy, a post not actually created at this time, consisted of his 20 Jan. 1818 letter to President James Monroe, an undated testimonial by William Tilghman and thirteen other signatories, and a 21 Jan. 1818 letter to Monroe by John B. Gibson (DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1817–25).